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The Wuzhishan pig is a breed of inbred miniature pig created by Professor Feng Shutang [1] intended to be used as a model organism for medical research.
| This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(March 2020) |
The Wuzhishan pig is a breed of inbred miniature pig created by Professor Feng Shutang [1] intended to be used as a model organism for medical research.
A Wuzhishan pig’s length ranges from 50 to 70 cm long (19.7-27.5 inches), with adults typically weighing between 30 and 35 kilograms (66.1-77.2 pounds). [2] They have a distinctive two-toned body which is black dorsally and pink ventrally.
The Wuzhishan pig is mainly used to study the human circulatory system due to the similarities between pig and human organs. [3] [2]
The full genome sequence and analysis were completed by BGI Group in 2012; the breed was successfully identified in early 2013. [4] The intellectual property rights for the breed are protected by both Chinese [5] and American patents. [6]
On May 18 2015, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that its Institute of Animal Science agreed to transfer all breeding research to Beijing Grand Life Science & Technology Co., Ltd., [7] which had the sole rights to breed and sell Wuzhishan pigs for commercial purposes.
Multiple Chinese research institutions, medical schools, hospitals, and enterprises conduct research around Wuzhishan pigs to establish their suitability as research models. [8] [9] Research on future life science and medical applications of the pigs also began to take place, to which the initial results include the injection of embryonic germ cells into blastocysts, [10] along with islet isolation and purification. [11]
On June 23, 2017, the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Grand Life Science declared that the PERV-pol gene-deficient Wuzhishan pig had been identified and verified by systematic virology methods and whole genome sequencing. [12] Grand Life had succeeded in reproducing F0/F1 PERV-noninfectious Wuzhishan pigs that then became available for advanced biomedical research purposes, [13] including a series of studies under the 2017-2020 National Primary Research Programs on bio-material development and tissue-organ repair.
Sus is the genus of wild and domestic pigs, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Sus include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar, along with other species. Sus species, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands. Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of South Asia, the warthogs of Africa, and other pig genera from Africa. The suids are a sister clade to peccaries.
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig, also known as the cavy or domestic cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the genus Cavia in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the name "cavy" for the animal, but "guinea pig" is more commonly used in scientific and laboratory contexts. Despite their name, guinea pigs are not native to Guinea, nor are they closely related to pigs. They originated in the Andes region of South America. Studies based on biochemistry and hybridization suggest they are domesticated animals that do not exist naturally in the wild, descendants of a closely related cavy species such as C. tschudii. They were originally domesticated as livestock for a source of meat, and are still consumed in some parts of the world.
Xenotransplantation, or heterologous transplant, is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants. It is contrasted with allotransplantation, syngeneic transplantation or isotransplantation and autotransplantation. Xenotransplantation is an artificial method of creating an animal-human chimera, that is, a human with a subset of animal cells. In contrast, an individual where each cell contains genetic material from a human and an animal is called a human–animal hybrid.
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The pig, also called swine or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the genus Sus. It is considered a subspecies of Sus scrofa by some authorities, but as a distinct species by others. Pigs were domesticated in the Neolithic, both in East Asia and in the Near East. When domesticated pigs arrived in Europe, they extensively interbred with wild boar but retained their domesticated features.
A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the phenotype of an organism. Transgene describes a segment of DNA containing a gene sequence that has been isolated from one organism and is introduced into a different organism. This non-native segment of DNA may either retain the ability to produce RNA or protein in the transgenic organism or alter the normal function of the transgenic organism's genetic code. In general, the DNA is incorporated into the organism's germ line. For example, in higher vertebrates this can be accomplished by injecting the foreign DNA into the nucleus of a fertilized ovum. This technique is routinely used to introduce human disease genes or other genes of interest into strains of laboratory mice to study the function or pathology involved with that particular gene.
The University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is a public university headquartered in Shijingshan, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The university is part of the Double First-Class Construction. Officially established in 2012, the university derives from the Graduate School of the University of Science and Technology of China founded in 1978.
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